Last week, before the end of the year, the Atlanta Braves agreed to send infielder Vaughn Grissom to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for veteran ace Chris Sale.
The Braves had been interested in some of the top free agent pitchers and reportedly talked to several teams about trading for an ace.
He might be aging, but a healthy Sale is as good as any pitcher in the league.
The left-hander was close to hitting the free agent market, but the Braves ensured that didn’t happen soon with a contract extension announced on Thursday.
The Atlanta Braves sign LHP Chris Sale: pic.twitter.com/0k5IqbuffK
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) January 4, 2024
It’s a two-year, $38 million contract for Sale, who will make $16 million in 2024 and 22 million in 2025.
There is also a club option for the 2026 campaign, worth $18 million.
It appears to be one last payday for one of the most talented pitchers of our generation.
Sale has posted a 3.10 ERA for his career, with 2,189 strikeouts in 1,780.2 frames.
In 2023, he overcame an iffy start and finished with a 4.30 ERA in 102.2 innings, with 125 punchouts.
His 3.80 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and 1.13 WHIP indicate he was better than his ERA suggests, but the Red Sox’s defense probably didn’t help matters.
The Braves have just about every resource in place to help Sale produce a couple of productive seasons in Atlanta.
He is probably not going to return to what he was in his prime (a strikeout machine who could flirt with 300 whiffs and an ERA in the low 2.00s), but Atlanta hopes he can be a frontline pitcher when healthy.
That last item might be an issue, considering Sale has had just about every injury in the book in the last few campaigns.
He is close to 100 percent now, though, and as long as that’s the case, there is exciting potential.
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